By our political correspondent
New Delhi,March 08 (IVC) Yesterday the Congress party workers at Thrissur, the home turf (Thattakam) of , the late veteran leader of Congress party K Karunakaran , had double shocks.
The first one was , Karunakaran’s daughter’s march to the BJPs headquarters here Yesterday and accepting Bharatiya Janata Party’s primary membership from Prakash Javedkar in the presence of former congress leader Tom Vadakan and BJP’s national Secretary Aravind Menon.
The second shock was that K Muraleedharan , Padmaja’s direct brother, nominated as the candidate of the Indian National Congress to contest from the Thrissur Lok Sabha Constituency, instead of the sitting member T N Pratapan.
It is believed that the denial of seat to Pratapan was a the result of a well-hatched conspiracy under the leadership of the prominent senior Congress leader who was the Union Minister in the earlier UPA Government led by Dr Manmohan Singh.
According to media reports the concerned leader was making his best efforts secretely for the BJP to win seats from the Lok Sabha seats from Kerala in the next elections and enable it to open its accounts in the Parliament from Kerala which was the long cherished wish of the BJP. The particular leader was also making contacts with Church to get its support for BJP on the assumption that it would be difficult for the Indian National Congress to gain its lost glory and assume power at the centre, media reports said.
According to the people of Thrissur, Muraleedharan was not fit for electing as MP from Trissur . He was defeated in the constituency by the CPI leader V V Raghavan in 1998.
Raghavan had defeated Mraleedharan’s father K Karunakaran in the Lok sabha elections in the Thrissur constituency in 1996.
Whlie Karunakan lost for a wafer thin majority of only 1480 votes, Muraleedharan had a miserable failure at the hands of CPI leader Raghavan for 18,409 votes. By defeating father and son at a stretch, Raghavan earned the sobriquet of “giant killer’.
A large number of electorate of Thrissur Lok Sabha Constituency holds the view that Muraleedharan’s candidature would boost the prospects of the BJP candidate Suresh Gopi for winning the Thrissur Constituency. Among the sitting MPs of the Indian National Congress from Kerala, only Pratapan was denied the opportunity for continuing again.
The Congress workers here in Thrissur are of the opinion that Padmaja’s defection to BJP would not affect the INC’s election prospects, for she was not a leader of charisma and influence. She had lost the Mukundapuram lok Sabha election and Thrissur assembly constituency in 2021 contesting as a congress candidate.
